High capability satellite terminals for communications are, in general, relatively very large, heavy, and expensive. While the physical characteristics of such terminals are not as critical for vehicle-mounted terminals, it is desirable in some circumstances for the terminals to be manually transported by a person, i.e., man-portable. In some cases, weight may be decreased by making the units smaller or using lighter materials, but certain antenna aperture sizes are needed to achieve useful data rates. When the antenna is made smaller, the combination of amplifier and up-converter, such as a Block Up-Converter (BUC), associated with the terminal needs to be made larger for transmission to be adequate. A larger BUC requires additional batteries, which increases weight, contradicting the purpose of reducing the size of the antenna. With respect to lighter materials, 1.2 meter dishes can be made to disassemble and can be made of lightweight plastic, but the precision of manufacturing involved has made this type of production expensive, and to an extent cost-prohibitive.
The laws of radio frequency (RF) transmission physics pose a strategic design dilemma for achieving increased digital transmission speed. Increased transmission speed requires any or all of increased dish size, increased transmission power, decreased transmission losses, or decreased system-wide link noise. Accordingly, apparatus is needed that provides adequate transmission speed, factoring in the above criteria, combined with the ability for the apparatus to be man-portable.